A career thug is going away for at least 18 years prison for masterminding the 2003 strangulation death and robbery of an African immigrant who sold bootleg DVDs and CDs in midtown.

Jallow Sullayman, 39, died face down on the floor of his Fifth Avenue outlet back in the days before the easy downloading of music and movies, when bootleg discs were a lucrative — but dangerous — underground business.

Jamel Williams, 33, masterminded the deadly plan to enter Sullayman’s fifth floor outlet, rob him at gunpoint of boxes of CDs, and leave him dead, a jury found two weeks ago.

“This was a horrible end of life, and this defendant, the jury found, was part of it, and I have no doubt was part of it,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ruth Pickholtz said.

Williams’ codefendants testified against him at trial, cutting years off their own prospective sentences.